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Saturday, June 6, 2015

I want to thank all of you for the kind comments on my last post. I have been working on a few things - it's time to show you those......

The kids and I made a trip to Colorado in March, for my nephew's wedding. Kind of a windy day, but here is the quilt I gave them for a wedding gift.

Later in March, Julie and I took a class, we were pattern testers for Terry Atkinson. Here is the top for the quilt pattern we tested. It's called Wanderlust. It's at the quilters now.

I also got this top pieced, it's a Pieced Tree Pattern called Jelly Jive.

It uses one Jelly Roll,

or 40 2 1/2 inch strips. It's also at the quilter now.......

I planted some flowers.....

And finished the "Growing Up Odd" Quilt. Great tutorial - just follow the link!

I mainly strip pieced it, and I used 1 1/2 inch strips, rather then 2 inch.

I'm keeping this one!

This is my little "cheater" quilt. Tutorial found here. It didn't say how much fabric to buy......If I make one again, I will buy more, so the side borders can be wider. I bought what was left on the bolt, which if I remember correctly was a yard and a third.

Saturday, January 24, 2015

It's a beautiful, sunny day here in northern Iowa! Temps are in the 30's, and there is very little wind. Very nice weather for January! I have been sewing in the evenings... some nights I have to drag myself away from the couch... Seems like I would rather lie around and watch TV.... Oh well...... I did manage to finish this quilt top:

It's a tutorial I found online, the quilt is called "Growing Up Odd". Cute name. I kind of did grow up odd. :) Anyhow, you can find the tutorial here. I used 1.5 inch strips, and made less blocks. I think mine measures about 44"x55".

I also got the "Film at Five Quilt" back from the quilter. It too is from "Wedding Dress Blue" blog, and the link to this tutorial is here. I know I've said this before, but she has lots of great tutorials for using up scraps.

Mine should really be called "Film at Four", since I made it 4 blocks x 4 blocks, rather than 5 x 5. I used navy and white gingham checks for the binding. Something I've had in my stash for probably 20 years....... :) I could tell it was 100% cotton though.... not like most gingham out there. Why is it that most gingham is a cotton/poly blend?

Lots of bright sunlight and shadows today..........not the best for pictures, but better than taking them indoors!

I used my Accuquilt cutter and the 1.5" strip die that DH got me for Christmas. It made the project go much quicker, but it still takes a lot of time! One more row of blocks, and then it will be time for sashing!

Friday, January 9, 2015

And I have been keeping busy. Just nothing here to show for it. I worked on Bonnie Hunter's Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt. I made mine smaller - I made half the units, thinking I'd make 2 baby quilts. When I was putting it together, I decided to make one quilt, but only use 9 of the blocks, not all 12 that I had made. Here is what I came up with...

It is really a busy quilt - it requires you to step back a little in order to see the pattern.
I made a few bags for Christmas and Birthday gifts back in December....

These were for my Dachshund-loving sister.

I also made some pillows from fabric placemats - these were for my son and daughter-in-law. The placemats were from Target. Lots of easy tutorials out there on how to make them. Basically, you pick open a seam (about 3 inches), stuff them, and sew the seam back together. About a 30 minute project.

I got some exciting Christmas mail, all the way from England! My friend Jen, over at Glinda Quilts, sent me a Christmas gift.

Quilty gifts from a quilty friend. Thanks, Jen!

I guess that's all I have for now. I am keeping busy......I just don't have much to show for it! I just got a quilt back from the long armer......After it's bound and finished, I will show it. Trying to stay warm here in Iowa........ blizzard yesterday...... gosh, I hate winter.......

Friday, November 7, 2014

I feel like I have been really busy this past week, and I haven't had much time to work on quilty/sewing stuff. I have managed to start putting together my Celtic Solstice quilt. This was Bonnie Hunter's (Quiltville.com) mystery quilt from last year. She will be starting this years mystery quilt the day after Thanksgiving. I'm not sure yet if I'm in or not.......

I have a few rows to go. Then I need to decide what I want for borders. I'm not sure I want to make it as complicated as Bonnie's. We'll see what I come up with!

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

October has really been a busy month. I don't know where the time has gone! Hubby and I celebrated our 31st anniversary on the 1st. I don't have a good picture of us now. In fact, I don't even have a bad picture of us now. But here is our engagement picture......

The funny thing about this picture is, John's glasses have no glass in them. They were the light sensitive lenses, and the photographer didn't want them to turn dark for the picture. So he took out a little screwdriver and popped out the lenses...

We also celebrated son #1's 30th birthday...

Don't mention that you saw him here...... I don't think he would appreciate it! :)

I also took went on a girls' weekend with Julie, one of her sisters, and her cousin. We went to Madison county, to see the bridges...

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We saw all 6 of them. I won't show them all........ I am wondering if pictures number 1 and 2 are of the same bridge. I don't think so.....

I also managed to get 3 quilts done -

this one was hard to get a picture of... sunny, shadowy day. It's a scrappy pink chevron quilt....

Here it is in the shade.

I also made a little rag quilt -

I haven't made one of these in a long time. I always love how they turn out.

And I finished up a wedding gift over the weekend -

Another Cloud 9 Quilt. I used some 2 1/2 inch strips of solids for the binding, as I only had small scraps left. I really like how this one turned out.

Oh, and we were babysitting our "Grand Dogs" for a long weekend. We took them home yesterday. Here is Lucy, anxious to get home. She rode almost the entire way looking out the front window.

Oh, and did you know that LeMars, Iowa is the Ice Cream Capital of the World?

I had to go to a meeting there last week, for work. We made sure to stop at the Blue Bunny Ice cream shop...... yummy!﻿